VALUE Based Marketing will be hitting producers in the next five years – with Teys executive director of livestock Geoff Teys putting it at between three and four years.
He said the move will not be made until 70 per cent of producers are on-board with the change in how they will be paid.
Speaking at the Teys Duaringa Producer Workshop last week, Mr Teys was joined by livestock strategic operations’ Jessica Loughland, who spoke about VBM.
Ms Loughland told the more than 200 producers present that the key drivers for VBM were the weight of the saleable product, and the sale value – the MSA eating quality.
She said for now producers should focus on trying to identify cattle that perform both in yield and eating quality.
“There are cattle that do eating quality really well, or yield really well - some do both really well, and some do both quite poorly,” she said.
“What we’re trying to do is identify the ones who do both really well.
“Because if you start breeding for yield, you’re actually going to be most likely reducing your eating quality because the traits you select for for yield, do tend to have a negative effect on eating quality.”
With producers keen to know why Teys will be paying on lean meat yield, not saleable meat yield, Ms Loughland said it came down to consistency.
“We’re talking a value-based payment system,” she said.
“There is massive, massive variation in saleable meat yield.
“Not just from one plant to another, but throughout the day as we’re packing product for different orders, we’ll change the specifications.
We’ll cut different ways and include different cuts for orders - that means the saleable meat yield could vary within a herd depending on what market it is being packed for.”